[Taxacom] Cost of databases

[John Noyes]

Hi Mary,

Heck, I am in the wrong job. I keep the UCD (25,000 species) going on two weeks a year and no funding. I would estimate the total cost over 15 years is no more than $400,000 and that includes development. Oh yes, I forgot, also a couple of volunteers (very) part-time.

John

John Noyes
Scientific Associate
Department of Life Sciences
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
South Kensington
London SW7 5BD 
UK
jsn at nhm.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 942 5594
Fax.: +44 (0) 207 942 5229

Universal Chalcidoidea Database (everything you wanted to know about chalcidoids and more):
www.nhm.ac.uk/chalcidoids 


-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Mary Barkworth
Sent: 29 August 2016 22:43
To: (Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu)
Subject: [Taxacom] Cost of databases

http://www.iucnredlist.org/news/paper-reveals-nature-conservation-knowledge-is-a-bargain (refering to a paper pulished in PLOSOne http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0160640

The first three paragraphs of the commenting paper:



A new study released today finds that the knowledge databases which underpin nature conservation and environmental decision-making - such as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species(tm) - cost US$ 6.5 million annually to manage, plus the dedication of thousands of volunteers.

The authors estimated that US$ 160 million plus 293 volunteer-years have been invested to date in developing these datasets, and the shortfall to complete the datasets is approximately US$ 114 million.

"This may sound expensive, but these costs are extremely low when compared with other societal expenditures, such as the Global Observing System for Climate, which required US$ 5 - 7 billion to maintain in 2010," says Melanie Heath, Director of Science, Policy and Information at BirdLife International. "To put this in perspective, the annual consumer spending on soft drinks is in the order of US$ 380 billion. Investing in these crucial datasets represents a bargain for society - the costs to create and curate them are easily outweighed by the benefits they deliver. [emphasis added]



Now the challenge is to convert such information into support. Note: "The motivation for the study came from the private sector," says Diego Juffe-Bignoli, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and lead author. "Companies which subscribe to the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool - which provides financial support for Protected Planet, another of the datasets we costed in this research - often ask us how much investment would be necessary to maintain these critical data in perpetuity. Now we have an answer."

The


_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org

Injecting Intellectual Liquidity for 29 years.